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Research

“Some things happen of necessity, others by chance, others through our own agency.
For he sees that necessity destroys responsibility and that chance is inconstant;
whereas our own actions are autonomous, and it is to them that praise and blame naturally attach”

— Epicurus allegedly discovers the free will problem and links free will to accountability (Letter to Menoeceus, ~3rd century BC)

My work is in the areas of social-cognitive-personality psychology and judgment/decision-making, with a touch of experimental philosophy.

Recommended videos on my research interests

Judgment and decision making, heuristics and biases

Dan Ariely is a gifted public speaker and writer, and a prolific researcher, with lots on judgment and decision making, and a very clear summary of the basic ideas of this research domain in a book “predictably irrational” (see books section below), presented in the following Ted talk (though, by now, a bit outdated):

I don’t do much on the related practical field, but it’s an important growing research domain, recently acknowledged by a Noble prize to Richard Thaler. It’s commonly referred to as “Nudging”, nicely outlined by David Halpern (UK behavioral insights team) in the following RSA talk:

Studying “free will” scientifically

Studying morality

Studying ethical behavior (dishonesty)

Experimental Philosophy with/versus Decision-making

Replication / reproducibility crisis

I support the Open Science movement, and recommend any scholar in any discipline to educate themselves about the advances in science, problems and solutions. Here are some quick simplified videos to get you up to date on the problems as of 2016. I try to keep track of articles on my WIKI. You are welcome to read more about my related work on pre-registered replications and meta-analyses.

Promoting open-access science

Psychological science books

Some have asked me what books I recommend. Below is a part list, targeted at the general audience.

Judgment and Decision Making / Behavioral Economics

The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds by Michael Lewis : the tales of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky and the academia on the bridge between psychology and economics and beyond. A fascinating read, brief mention of key theories and developments. A rare glimpse at the inner workings of academia, collaborations, and the psychology fields.

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman: an important read in the field, summarizes key findings, even if sometimes a bit too straightforward and aimed more at academics than laypersons. Daniel won the Noble prize for economics in 2002. (a bit outdated, especially given the “crisis”, I would skip the priming chapter)

Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics by Richard Thaler : Richard Thaler lays out behavioral economics and his and others’ research on the bridge between psychology and economics. Richard won the Noble prize for economics in 2017. Some of the tales entertaining, fairly simple language, but some chapters go deep into economics jargon.

The Mind Club: Who Thinks, What Feels, and Why It Matters by Daniel Wegner and Kurt Gray. Summarizes theory of mind and attributions of mind, covers interesting laybeliefs, and somewhat related to the literature on layconcepts of free will and dualism (mind-body). Though provoking read.